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Your Turn: The Genre Comfort Zone

A love of JRPGs blinded Stephen Foote to the possibilities offered by other genres.

During the heady days of the PSOne era, there was onegenre of game I played relentlessly: JRPG's. Growing up, money was pretty tight for my family which meant I missed out on the NES and SNES through which many gamers had their first JRPG experience. Fortunately, this didn't last forever.

Eventually, 1999 saw Sony drop the price of the PSOne to the point where, with a little help from savings and birthday money from my grandparents, I bought my very first console. When my Dad and I went to pick it up, he also threw in a Platinum copy of Final Fantasy 7. Now a somewhat clichéd first JRPG experience, at 14 years old with no prior experiences in the genre under my belt, it blew me away.

Needless to say I was hooked. The story, the setting, the characters and the gameplay all converged to create something I had been searching for all along and had never found. After this, no other game genre could satisfy my appetites. I ignored them all in favour of these strange Eastern gaming wonders, ever thankful that my parents would deliver them to me at Christmas and Birthday time despite calling them a "waste of time and money" over and over.

I continued to plough through every entry in the genre I could find, going so far as to mod my precious PlayStation in order to experience Chrono Cross, Xenogears, Legend of Mana and whatever other JRPGs Squaresoft and other developers declined to deliver to a PAL audience. At one point I owned an original copy of every game Squaresoft ever released in PAL territories (Yes, even Chocobo Racing).

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It was during this period I discovered something that rings even truer today in my current gaming life: Some games demand serious time from you if you wish to experience most of the content. Even as a high school student ignoring his studies to focus on gaming, I still didn't possess enough hours in the day to complete the majority of my collection. Many of them became relegated to a box in my cupboard, a way to hide my shame.

On my 17th birthday, I was supposed to get a number of professional driving lessons like my older brother received, probably in the hopes that I would get a car and do more productive things than play video games. However due to an unfortunate American Football accident which at the time impeded my ability to walk or take driving lessons, I was given a PlayStation 2 instead, something which still ranks as one of my Best Birthday Presents Ever.

At that point the only JRPG's I could source were Final Fantasy X and Dark Cloud, both of which I bested. Soon after, more entries in the genre flooded the one EB Games store within a 50 minute radius of my coastal town and the same problem I encountered during the PSOne era paid me a visit. Between casual work, a girlfriend and High School, I had even less time to game. Nevertheless, I still continued to make purchases with my fat Woolworths Nightfill bank, fuelling my neglected habit with Dark Chronicle, Kingdom Hearts and Star Ocean 3 among others.

As the years rolled by, my pile of shame expanded while my list of completed games came to a standstill. By the launch of the Xbox 360 in 2006, I had probably finished less that 25% of the JRPG's I owned, which only got worse as Level 5 and Atlus increased their output on the aging PS2.

By now everybody knows the rocky relationship Microsoft's console shares with the JRPG genre. It was during this period that a pivotal point in my gaming life, and the point of this long winded article, was played out. On August 24th of 2007, Japanese developer Mistwalker released their first game for the XBox 360, Blue Dragon. To me, this game seemed like the perfect storm - the art style of Akira Toriyama combined with two of the biggest names in JRPG history, Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobuo Uematsu of Final Fantasy fame.

On that same day, Irrational Games released another title you might have heard of: Bioshock. On my way home from work a few days later, I visited the nearest K-Mart to pick up Blue Dragon at the cheapest price I could find at the time. Sitting next to it on the display shelf was the Steel Case Edition of Bioshock. I couldn't help but pick it up, and what I saw on the back intrigued me. The art design was like nothing I'd ever seen before, the story like nothing I'd heard. Before every PC gamer and their mum scoffs at me, I have a confession to make: At Bioshock's release, I had not played a First Person Shooter since Quake. Not Deus Ex, not Half Life, not System Shock 1 or 2, literally nothing

I don't quite know where the thought came from, but I had honestly convinced myself that I did not like FPS games, though as I write this now the reasons behind my logic escape me. Despite having my heart set on exploring yet another anime styled JRPG, something drew me to this game. I put Blue Dragon back on the shelf and left with Bioshock.

I have no reservations in saying that the title blew my genre-sheltered mind in much the same way Bethesda's WRPG Morrowind did when I first experienced it (but that's another story). Since first playing Bioshock, I have never been so enthralled with a game. Some like Batman: Arkham City have come close, but none have quite reached the watermark left by my first trip to Rapture.

Never fear, I haven't completely abandoned the JRPG genre, but my tastes have definitely come a long way from my PSOne days of playing every JRPG I could, many of which were in retrospect fairly terrible and generic. By opening me up to a genre I had always previously dismissed, Bioshock paved the way for me to experience many of the other worlds in gaming I had shut out as well as providing me with a genre containing a multitude of titles which didn't require 60 or more hours to finish.

If you feel locked into a gaming rut, aren't getting that same rush any more or if your pile of shame is about to collapse in on itself, I encourage you to experiment with what genres you're playing. It's easy to forget that change is a subtle thing. The games we enjoyed in younger years aren't necessarily what we need to satisfy us today & as our lives continue to change with work and family commitments, our gaming habits also need to adapt. Take a leap of faith the next time you're perusing and step outside your Genre Comfort Zone.

- Stephen Foote

Screen Play readers can submit articles or game reviews for consideration in Your Turn and Your Review using the email address SPYourTurn@gmail.com. The best blog post published on Screen Play between 1 September 2012 and 28 September 2012, as judged by James Dominguez, will win a PlayStation 3 console from Sony Computer Entertainment. The PS3 has a 160GB hard drive and is worth $349. The next prize winner will be announced on Friday 28 September. Only Australian residents are eligible and the judge's decision is final.

16 comments so far

As we get older, things change, simple as that. But there are a couple of things to consider. I know when I was younger I was far more limited in the amount of games I was able to get, so I tended to gravitate towards the longer games which typically were JRPGs. Even now JRPGs is still my favourite kind of game genre as my PS2, DS and PSP collection can attest to. I still have a fair bit of JRPGs on my PS3, but the ratio compared to other games has decreased.

This is down to several factors. One is that JRPGs aren't as plentiful as before on the consoles (NIS America however still localises a LOT of JRPGs), in fact a lot have moved to the handheld which is why I have so many on the DS/PSP. I have a feeling part of this is to avoid the graphics and "limited" gameplay rut (compared to other games anyway) as its more justified on a handheld, also its a lot cheaper to develop. Disgaea 3 for example got criticised on the PS3 for its graphics, but it wasn't on the Vita. The other is that, at this point in time, the gaming landscape is very, very diverse. If you don't limit yourself to one genre (be it FPS, Western RPG, or JRPGs etc), you'll be thoroughly surprised by what other genres can offer you. True that this diversity has always kinda existed, but not so many titles all at once which are all considered good or great. My PC/PS3 collection can attest to the kind of diversity I go for now. There are other factors but I'll just mention one more, bigger disposable income. I'm able to *buy* more games now, so that has to count for something.

Commenter

Raito

Date and time

September 18, 2012, 6:53AM

My story is pretty similar to this. I spent my teens almost solely playing JRPG's with sports games on the side. I ended up not playing games much at all in my late teens/early 20's for a few years, then essentially got right back into it with Halo and Oblivion - two genres I'd had almost zero prior experience with. I'd only ever dabbled with Counter Strike as far as FPS goes and had never played a WRPG.

tl;dr, I may have been largely lost to gaming had I not tried something different on a whim. I've now spent thousands of dollars and hours on this hobby in the ensuing 5 or 6 years...

Commenter

js

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

September 18, 2012, 8:40AM

This had me thinking of genres that I don't like.

...

Damn. That's a worry. Is there some kind of gaming support group? Do they have meetings? Is soccer a genre?

Commenter

Blurry

Date and time

September 18, 2012, 9:04AM

Yeah, this concept of genre comfort zone is pretty alien to me as well. I get cravings for different genres. I get cravings for specific game types that may or may not exist, and wind up searching for the closest title to fill the void. I think if someone told me I could only ever play one genre of game for the rest of my days, I'd be horrified. I don't think I could choose, unless I was allowed to choose some unholy hybrid of Open World RPG/Driving/FPS/Stealth/Adventure/Management Sim/Puzzle Solver.

Commenter

Lucid Fugue

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

September 18, 2012, 9:33AM

I think the point made in the column is that Stephen was funneled down a particular genre "path" in part due to monetary constraints as a teenager. If you're an adult with disposal income and with the cheap options available to us now (digital and imports), varied gaming is almost a given for most.

Commenter

js

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

September 18, 2012, 11:54AM

Hmmmm.... genres I don't like...

The Sims - Sims are OK, but THE Sims get boring VERY quickly.

RTS - Mainly cos I suck at them.

Japanese Dating Games - I'm sure (I hope) I don't like these, though I plan on never testing this.

...

Commenter

Badge

Location

Utopia

Date and time

September 18, 2012, 12:07PM

Just being an adult and having a disposable income doesn't stop you from ending up playing a very limited range of games.Since my first child was born 4 years ago, here is the list of games i have played. Dragon age 1 and 2 Mass Effect 2 & 3, The Witcher 1 &2. And League of legends on and off.

What it comes down to is that i am time poor. I work odd hours and spend time with my kids, which leaves me usually around an hour or so of leisure time each night. So when i play a game i want to play one i know i will love. With the exception of of DA2 the above games have all been fantastic. If i was playing a FPS (always my least like genre of game) i would feel that i had waisted the small amount of time that i have to engross myself in a game. I'm sure that i have missed some cracker games in the last 4 years but RPG's have always been my favorite genre so that is what i play.

Commenter

AC

Location

Syd

Date and time

September 18, 2012, 1:07PM

@badge: Awwww... whats wrong w/ having a little go at Jp Visual Novels? =P Honestly though most of the time VN's are really just digital versions of the ye olde Choose Your Own Adventure Books. All depends on how well crafted the story and characters are.

Commenter

RocK_M

Location

I want chinese take-away!

Date and time

September 18, 2012, 2:39PM

Starting back in the C64 days there weren't that many genres - platform, cRPG, Adventure and maybe a couple of others. High school was a great source of games, so I wasn't limited to any single genre - we played them all.

It has been exciting over the years watching new genres emerge - the day my little sister came home from school and handed my a floppy disc - Wolfenstein - and suddenly there was FPS.

It is also interesting watching genres fade and very exciting when they get re-invigorated. Often this is through Indie games, but occasionally mainstream titles see the rebirth of a fading genre - XCOM: Enemy Unknown, for example, has me salivating.

I think genre specific gamers are probably more common now than they were in the past - how girlfriends "Only play The Sims"? How many people tell you categorically that they're not gamers but play Modern Warfare X? How many parents say "My kids are only play Rockstar"?

Me? I still play them all. Well, most of them.

Commenter

Badge

Location

Utopia

Date and time

September 18, 2012, 12:23PM

Yeah, I know people who I wouldn't call gamers, but they went mad for Tony Hawk at one point, and then simply never looked for any other games. That's barely even being genre-limited. That's like only reading Tom Clancy novels.

Which is, I suppose, an apt comparison. Some people talk of books in terms of genres (e.g. "I never read fantasy" or "I only read non-fiction"). Others talk in terms of authors. Whilst some people just love to read. It shouldn't be surprising that games can be approached in much the same way - focusing on genre or series or developer.